First, I have a dentist appointment Monday which was originally the day I went to L&D; my doula friend agreed to come over and watch him for the two hours I'll be gone. I have a club meeting Thursday that I don't know how to handle; we'd already skipped last month for me, but I don't feel ok leaving him for the whole evening yet. I may see if I can attend the second half with the baby. Then next Sunday the band has a gig. Either my sister will be here or another friend will watch him. So I can put it off for now, but eventually I'm going to have to hire professionals.
There is a place in Pasadena that has evening drop in babysitting at $10 an hour; I may try to do a tour next week. That would free me up for some, although not all, of my activities. This is going to cost a pretty penny, but I knew this going in. This is the next hurdle for me - trusting other people to look after my baby. I cringe at the thought, but it's something I'm going to have to face, and soon.
Our bedtime routine is changing, too. The first night home I had the lights on, TV blaring, and stayed awake all night just to keep the scary thoughts away. About a week ago I started turning off the light; a few nights ago I was able to turn off the TV. Today I set up the co-sleeper. I don't know when I'll use it, but I am starting to get paranoid about having him in the bed with me. We're sleeping for longer stretches, and I wake up with all sorts of tweaked muscles from sleeping in odd positions to protect him. I might just try to put him in it tonight once he's asleep. Then I'll know he's safe and I can spread out in the bed. Might be the first comfortable stretch of sleep since before I was pregnant, even! It's all about baby steps right now (literally).
I had to keep a light on too those early weeks but finally went & bought a blue light bulb... It provided enough light to fulfill my need to see Elena but was dim enough to allow me to sleep. We eventually transitioned to a night light & finally full darkness. It's great how much better both of us sleep when the room is dark.
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